Chapter I Basic premises - meaning, scope and significance of Public Administration
A.
The need for Public Administration With the increasing complexity or modern life, the importance of public administration has been increasing. This is because of the need for intervention by the State in the day-to-day activities of the citizens. There is hardly any aspect of a citizen’s life which does not come into contact with some government agency or the other. In ancient times the needs of the citizens were limited. They could, therefore, live in more or less self-sufficient village communities producing in the village itself whatever they needed for their simple existence. The scientific and industrial revolutions have changed the situation. The industrial products require a degree of specialization which makes it necessary for the communities to live in bigger cities. The means of production have become rather complex and require a much greater degree of organizational effort. A number of activities can no longer be organised by the citizens privately or even by village or city communities. The national government and the State and the local governments have, therefore, to come forward to provide the necessary infrastructural facilities for organizing production as well as for facilitating community living. For example, roads and Railways have to be built to facilitate the transport of raw material to the site of production as well as to facilitate the distribution of the manufactured goods. These facilities are also required to meet the needs of the citizens in moving over long distances required by modern day living. Similarly, communication facilities like the telephones; microwave transmissions, satellite communication etc. have to be provided to meet the needs of the communities. All these require massive investments in human and material resources far beyond the capacity of small village or even city communities. These investments have to be made by the national government and administered with the help of the local governments and the local communities. Apart from the financial investments, a lot of organizational effort is required to meet these needs of the citizens. The points of contact between the citizens and the government
have, therefore, increased tremendously. The importance of public administration has been keeping pace with these developments. The interest of the scholars in the study of public administration has also been correspondingly increasing. Although the study of public administration as a separate discipline is of recent origin, the subject has been studied for quite a long time as a part of the discipline of the political science. Before taking up a study of the subject of public administration, it would be worthwhile to have an idea of the meaning and scope of the subject. B.
Meaning of Public Administration Public administration is a part of the wider term “Administration”. To understand the meaning of public administration we must, therefore, firstly try to understand what administration means. Administration The word administer is derived from the Latin words administrate, which means to care for or to look after people, to manage affairs. According to this wide definition almost every human activity involves some kind of administration. Even in primitive societies, simple activities like hunting, food, gathering, etc., could not be carried on without some form of organization. Somebody had to determine as to who will do what. Certain norms of behaviour had to be laid down to decide the distribution of work among the members of the primitive groups. Of course, the administration at that time was rather simple because the tasks to be carried out were also simple. With the growing complexity of modern life the administration of private as well as public affairs has become more and more complex. We would now consider some of the definitions of administration given by prominent scholars. Luther Gulick has said, “Administration has to do with getting things done; with the accomplishment of defined objectives”. James L. McCanny defined Administration in these words, “Administration is the organization and use of men and materials to accomplish a purpose. It is the specialized vocation of managers who have skills of organizing and directing men and materials just as definitely as the engineer has the skill of building structure or a doctor has the skill of understanding human ailments”.
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Pfiffner and Presthus have defined administration as “Organisation and direction of human and material resources to achieve desired ends”. From the above definitions, it becomes clear that administration is essentially a group activity which involves co-operation and coordination to achieve desired goals or objectives. This also means that administration has an element of rationality. Administration is thus a rational action, an endeavour to maximize the achievement of goals or objectives, by a group of human beings. For example, for rolling off a stone to a fix place, persons are put to the stone in such a relationship as to maximize their efforts in a certain given direction. This arrangement of persons in relation to the stone i.e., the job is called the “Management”. These two factors, namely, Organisation and Management are special features of administrative activity. It must, however, be remembered that while administration is basically a collective activity, every collective action is not administration. The Integral and Managerial Views of Administration There is a difference of opinion about the question as to what activity or activities are included in “Administration.” According to integral view, `Administration’ is the sum total or the whole complex of activities, manual, clerical, technical and managerial which are undertaken to realize the objective in view, i.e., the implementation of the policy or policies in a given field. According to the managerial view, `Administration’ is not the sum total of the activities undertaken in pursuance of a purpose but pertains to only some of the activities concerned with management which unite and control the rest of them as part of co-coordinated endeavour. The distinction between the two views of `Administration’ is related to the difference between the management and operation, or in ordinary words between getting things done and doing things. According to the managerial view, only managerial or supervisory activities constitute administration. The operational activities are not included. We may also say that according to the managerial view, `Administration’ is not doing things, but getting them done. An administrator is a functionary who gets things done by others by directing and supervising their work. 2
Public Administration In a broad sense, therefore, Administration is common to both public and private affairs. Public Administration would then refer to that part of administration which pertains to the administrative activities of the government. Here again, it would be worthwhile to turn to the definitions of public administration given by some wellknown scholars. Percy McQueen “Public Administration is administration related to the operations of government whether local or central”. Luther Gulick defined public administration in these words, “Administration has to do with getting things done … Public Administration is that part of science of administration which has to do with the government and thus concerns itself primarily with the executive branch where the work of the government is done, though there are obviously problems also in connecting with the legislative and judicial branches”. L.D. White – According to him, public administration “consists of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfillment of enforcement of public policies as declared by the competent authority.” Pfiffner – thought that public administration “consists of getting the work of government done by coordinating the efforts of the people so that they can work together to accomplish their set tasks. Administration embraces the activities which may be highly technical or specialized such as public health and building of bridges… It also involves managing, directing and supervising the activities of thousands, even millions of workers so that some order and efficiency may result from their efforts…..” C.
Scope of Public Administration The thrust of the various definitions of public administration is that it pertains to the administrative activities of the government. As is well known, the activities of the government are commonly divided into three major branches, namely, Legislative, Executive and Judicial. The question naturally arises as to which of the activities of the government are included in the study of public administration. There are two views on this subject. According to 3
one point of view, public administration is conceived in a comprehensive sense to include all the activities of the government, whether falling in the sphere of legislative, executive or judicial branch of the government. However, according to the other point of view, `public administration’ is concerned only with such activities of the government which pertain to the executive branch. L.D. White takes the former broad view, while Luther Gulick supports the latter narrow view. There is a further narrowing down of the scope of public administration by restricting it to these activities of the executive branch which are connected with the execution of the policies. It means that the policy formulation has to be separated from the execution of the policy. It is only the execution which is supposed to form part of public administration according to this narrow view. Another complication in the scope of the study of public administration is introduced by the two views of administration, namely, integral and managerial views. Public administration, being a part of the more general term administration, is subject to these two views of administration also. The differences of opinion about the scope of study of public administration thus centers around the crucial points whether public administration is only the managerial part of the government work or the entire complex of the activities or only the executive branch of the government or of all branches and finally whether administration is mere execution or application of policy or is a factor in the formulation of policy also. D.
Managerial View of Public Administration The view that administration is made of managerial tasks only is mainly held by the writers on business administration though most of the American writers on public administration also accept it either as a matter of principle or for practical convenience. The natural question then arises as to what is included in public administration according to this view. Henri Fayol felt that principal categories of administration are five, namely, Planning (including research and forecasting), Organisation, command, coordination and control. According to him, these are the actual steps which successively occur in the administrative process. When any task is to be accomplished the natural first step is enquiry or research leading to planning. The Plan requires the necessary 4
organization of men and material which have to be coordinated, commanded and controlled to achieve the objectives. L. Urwick supported this analysis of Henri Fayol. Their work was carried forward by Mooney and Reiley, P. McQueen and others who attempted to deduce the fundamental principles of administration. Willoughby was the first to write about this aspect. In this wellknown work “Principles of Public Administration’, he divided the study of principles into five parts, namely: i)
general or overhead administration (including allocation of functions, direction, supervision and control);
ii)
organization, i.e. building up of administrative structure;
iii)
Personnel management:
iv)
Materials and supply; and
v)
Finance
Refining and elaborating these sub-divisions further, American administrative thought on the scope of public administration appears to have crystallized around the functional elements indicated by the letters of the word POSDCORB coined by Luther Gulick. This word stands for the following activities: P – stands for Planning O – stands for Organisation S – stands for Staffing D – stands for Directing CO – stands for co-ordination R – stands for Reporting B – stands for Budgeting The POSDCORB activities are said to represent the techniques, which are common to all the fields of administration or management. These were, therefore, taken to be the essential core or substance of administration. Subject Matter View of Public Administration For quite some time, the above-mentioned managerial view of public administration dominated the scene. It was however, realized that the POSDCORB activities were not the whole of
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administration. Some scholars of public administration went to the extent of suggesting that these were only the common housekeeping activities or tools of administration, the real core of which consisted of the various functions or services like law and order, education, public health, social security, defence, etc. These programmes or services have important and specialized techniques of their own and are not covered by POSDCORB activities. For example, Food & Agriculture administration has its own techniques of production, distribution, extension, etc, which are not covered by POSDCORB. It was also realized that the common techniques of management are very often influenced by the subject matter of the services to be rendered by a particular department of the Government. For example, the Organisation for maintenance of Law & Order is very much different from the organization for education, public health or agriculture. E.
A Reconciliation The two views about the scope of public administration have been discussed above. It is, however, not necessary to accept only one of them to the exclusion of the other. Just as the human organ has both an anatomy and a physiology of its own, the public administration has the common techniques of POSDCORB as its skeleton and the specialized methods of various programmes as its muscles and sinews. Without either of them the public administration cannot function. Reconciling the two views, the scope of public administration ought to include – i)
Administrative theory – which is general and abstract and largely consists of POSDCORB techniques common to all administration.
ii)
The study of the concrete application of the common administrative theory to the various fields of administrative activity, such as agriculture, animal husbandry, public health, social welfare, defence etc.
In addition, the scope of public administration should also include the administrative organization and methods at different levels of the Government, such as, local administration, national administration and international administration. It may also include the study of the administrative system in different countries and under different forms of philosophies of Government.
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F.
Significance of Public Administration The significance of the public administration can be studied from points of view, namely, i)
its significance as an instrument of governance;
ii)
its significance as an instrument of development and change;
iii)
its significance in modern domestic welfare state;
i)
Significance of Public Administration as an Instrument of Governance The most important function of the Government is to govern i.e. to maintain peace and public order and to ensure the safety and security of the life and property of the citizens. It has to ensure that the contracts are honoured by the citizens and their disputes settled. This most significant role of the Government is to be fulfilled through the instrument of public administration. In the beginning of the civilization this was probably the only function performed by the public administration. As the civilization has advanced, many very important functions have been taken over by the Government, but, the importance of this basic function should not be minimized. worthwhile progress or development is possible unless the citizens can live in peace. The continuing performance of this function is like the presence of oxygen in the air we breathe. It is hardly noticed so long as it exists. However, in its absence civilized life is impossible. It is also a mistake to think that this regulatory function of the public administration has been static. It has been growing with the growing complexity of modern civilization. For example, new methods of investigation have had to be devised to take care of the better equipped criminals. New sets of controls had to be devised to enable the citizens to share the scarcity of food and other essential articles.
ii)
Significance of Public Administration as an Instrument of Development and Change The public administration has to play a very significant role as an instrument of development and change. The 7
administration of the country reflects the genius of its people and embodies their qualities, desires and aspirations. Whenever the people decide to proceed on the road to development, their main instrument is the public administration. They need trained manpower to run this schools, colleges and the technical institutions. They need technical manpower to build roads, bridges, buildings and to run the machines in the industry. They need scientific manpower to undertake research and development. It is the well-developed public administration which makes all this possible. It is true that part of the effort comes in the private sector, but it alone cannot complete the task. A lot of basic infrastructure has to be developed for which the private initiative is usually not forthcoming. For example, nation wide rail transport, telecommunication network, fundamental research are all to be organised by the Government. In several development areas initial thrust has to be provided by the Government. All this is not possible without a welldeveloped public administration. This fact was also highlighted by the American administrators and private aid giving agencies who took up the task of assisting the developing countries. It was their experience that the recipient countries could not make much use of their assistance because they did not have the well-equipped administrative machinery to absorb it. The equipment provided by them could not be used for want of skilled manpower. Financial assistance could not be channelized into productive schemes. The first task of developing countries is, therefore, to develop adequate administrative machinery which can take up the diverse tasks required for all round development. The above discussion may create an impression that the public administration plays a significant part only in economic development. Nothing could be farther from truth. In a developing country, the public administration is also an instrument of social change and development. A number of social welfare measures have to be taken up. New laws have to be enacted and enforced. The obvious examples are antiuntouchables, anti-dowry laws and laws for the protection of weaker sections like labour, children, women etc. While the impetus for social change may come from the political
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process, somebody has to draft the laws and enforce them. This is the task of public administration. (iii)
Significance of Public Administration as an Instrument of Welfare State In a modern democratic welfare State, the Government has to provide many services for the welfare of its citizens. It includes the provision of schooling, medical facilities and social security measures. With the breakdown of joint families, the problem of looking after the old and infants, orphans and widows comes up. With the slowing of economic activity, the problem of unemployed youth crops up. The development process brings up many new problems like those of urban slums and juvenile delinquents. The welfare State has to identify these problems and devise solutions for them. The formulation of these schemes and their implementation is another significant function of public administration. The public administration is thus not only a protector of citizens from external dangers or internal disorders, but has become the greatest provider of various services. The welfare of the people depends very much on the way the public administration functions. No wonder today’s state has been called an “Administrate State”. Prof. V.V. Donham has rightly said, “if our civilization fails, it will be mainly because of administration”.
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Chapter-II Public And Private administration
The term Public Administration appears to suggest that there must be non-public or private administration also. Some thinkers believe that all administration is one and there is no difference between public or private administration. Urwick, Mary Parkor Follet and Henri Fayol are of this view. They belong to a school of thought which tried to find basic principles of administration which were equally applicable to public and private administration. Similarities The public and private administration shows a number of similarities in practice. We usually say that all those activities which are performed by the governmental agencies or public agencies from part of public administration while those performed by the private agencies are called private administration. There are, however, many activities which are performed both by private and public agencies. For example, business activities were mainly performed by private organizations. But, the Government has taken upon itself many economic and business activities were mainly performed by private organizations. But, the Government has taken upon itself many economic and business activities, which hitherto were the preserves of private administration. This has given rise to a new form of organization, namely, a public corporation which is very much different from the usual departmental form of organization prevalent in the Government. This form of organization has become necessary to provide the public administration sufficient flexibility necessary for running business enterprises in developing countries like India the public sector has come to occupy a very important position in the economic organization of the country. The role of public corporations has, therefore, gone up tremendously, giving rise to the phenomenon of adopting the business practices of private organizations in the Government. It has also been increasingly realized that there are many skills, techniques and procedures which are common to both public and private administration. For example, accounting, statistics, office management, office procedures, purchases, disposals and stocking and many other 10
activities are common to both public and private administration. In a number of countries several institutions have come up which attempt to train administrators from public and private administration together. For example, Administrative Staff College of UK and Hyderabad Staff college of India have been established to bring about harmony and coordination between public and private administration. Obviously this is due to the realization of the fact that there is a lot in common between the public and private administration and both can benefit from each other’s experience. In many countries, there has also been a cross movement of functionaries between public and private administration. For example, in Japan a large number of public servants take up employment in private industry after seeking premature retirement. Similarly, there is a great deal of exchange of personnel between public and private sector in United States of America. Even in India recruitment to public services has been made on an adhoc basis from open market. This has been done twice since independence in addition to regular recruitment. A large number of personnel in these special recruitments have been contributed by the private sector. This would not have been possible if the public sector and the private sector did not have anything in common. There appears to be a lot of force in the contention of scholars like Urwick and Fayol that both public and private administration has common techniques. Having said that it must be admitted that there are some significant differences between the public and private administration and they cannot be overlooked in any objective study of administration. Differences According to Simon, popular-imagination makes rather sharp distinction between public and private administration. The general impression appears to be that they differ in the following three important aspects: i)
Public administration is bureaucratic, administration is business-like
while
private
ii)
Public administration is political, administration is non-political.
whereas
private
iii)
Public administration is characterized by red-tape from which private administration is comparatively free.
Although these distinctions are not fully borne out by facts, the popular image of public administration continues to be that characterized by these observations.
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Sir Josia Stamp pointed out four major points of difference between public and private administration. We would briefly discuss them below: i)
The Principle of Uniformity One of the most significant characteristics of public administration is that it is subject to the principle of uniformity. It requires that administrative acts and decisions must be consistent, i.e., in conformity with the rules and precedents. These rules and precedents must be applied uniformly to all the citizens and classes of citizens. If any discrimination is shown without a reasonable cause, it may give rise to a lot of criticism and discontent among the people. The private administration on the other hand is not bound by any such rules of uniformity. In fact, a great deal of preferential treatment is shown to certain clients in almost every business activity. This kind of favoured treatment is not viewed unfavourably and is taken as a normal business practice.
ii)
External financial control In public administration the executive does not control finance. The expenditure from public funds can only be incurred when authorized by Legislature. Even after authorization, the expenditure is subject to a great deal of control by Legislature through its agencies of audit etc. Such complete divorce of finance and administration does not exist in private administration. The board of management, which controls the business operations of the private undertakings, also controls financial management.
iii)
Public accountability Public administration is obviously subject to public accountability. This is very much more so in case of parliamentary democracy like India. Every action of a minister or a public servant is subject to close scrutiny by the representatives of the people sitting in Parliament. Even for trivial matters, a Minister can be called upon to reply a question in Parliament. Any departure from the accepted norms of behaviour or practice can cause a lot of embarrassment to the Government. On account of this accountability, the public servants have to be very guarded and circumspect in all their actions. They have to keep records of actions taken by them so that the responsibility of
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every action can be clearly fixed. This explains much of the red-tape prevalent in the functioning of the Government. On the other hand, private administration is generally not so accountable to the people or their representatives. The private managers are free to take whatever action they deem fit in the interests of the organization in which they are serving. iv)
Profit motive The private administration is largely governed by profit motive. This principle is not applicable to public administration. It does not mean that the Government should necessarily indulge in extravagant or wasteful expenditure. However, it does mean that a public administrator cannot be guided solely by consideration of profit or economy in expenditure. He has to make sure that his actions are justified by the results in terms of public welfare. For example, when it comes to controlling a law and order situation, a District Magistrate or a Police Commissioner cannot think in terms of saving money on the movement of troops to the place of disorder. On the other hand, the private administrator is mostly governed by the profit motive. The sole criterion for decision in a private organization is the answer to the question `will it pay’. Means to maximize their profits. Even the honest private administrators cannot be expected to indulge in activities which do not bring profit to the organization. Apart from the above mentioned basic differences pointed out by Josia Stamp, there are a number of other significant differences between public and private administration. We would discuss here some of the important ones.
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Chapter-III New Public Administration
A.
Emergence of New Public Administration (NPA) The emergence of New Public Administration (NPA) can be traced back to the late 1960s. There were various reasons for the emergence of the NPA. The world had witnessed two Great Wars by that time and after the wars a number of agencies to alleviate the human sufferings had been formed e.g. UNO, WHO, UNICEF, etc. However, these agencies found it difficult to accomplish their tasks in the absence of effective and efficient administrative systems in various countries. Unemployment, poverty, population, etc., were increasing very rapidly and it was considered that these problems were due to the inefficiency of the administrators and also due to the inadequacies in the perception about the scope of Public Administration. It was thought that the machinery of Public Administration was not responding to the needs of the people as it was considered that policy formulation was an area for the political leaders, while the administrators have to only implement the policy so framed. Hence, there arose a need to rethink about the objective and scope of Public Administration and the concept of NPA emerged as a result thereof. There were also some other factors responsible for the growth of NPA. It was felt that the objectives of Public Administration at its core are still the same and it is still used chiefly as an instrument of law and order and to maintain status-quo which benefits elite classes. Therefore, scholars opined that the machinery of Public Administration should act as an instrument of initiating and sustaining social change in order to bring down the growing frustration among the people. They also felt that in the eagerness to make Public Administration a science, the value-content of the Public Administration has been missed i.e. the emphasis so far had been on a value-free administration which meant that rules are applied equally and no positive concession is given to the weakest of weaker sections in the society. In the 1960s, there arose a crisis of governance in USA, where most of the scholars of Public Administration were based at that time. The crisis reached its culminating point with the failures at the Vietnam War, the rising youth unrest in USA, the rising civil rights movements and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Martin 14
Luther Kind Junior etc. This crisis had a natural impact on the study of Public Administration at that time and the concept of NPA emerged which suggested, in a nutshell, that Public Administration doesn’t function in vacuum and the administration should be responsive towards the needs of the society and address itself to problems and malaise that affected the society. B.
Features of NPA NPA focuses chiefly on following things: (i)
Change and Administrative Responsiveness i.e. operational flexibility and organizational adaptability to meet the environmental changes should be in-built in the administrative system.
(ii)
Relevance/Rationality of changes – i.e. people should see changes as relevant meaning thereby that changes should be specific to the needs of the area and the needs of the people. Earlier approaches to NPA considered that rationality in decisions should be from the view point of administrators only and hence rationality of the people was neglected. NPA suggests the inclusion of rationality of the people too in the process of policy formulation.
(iii)
NPA advocates emphasis on Management-worker relations. There should be equal emphasis both on efficiency and human considerations. The new approach has to satisfy both the efficiency and the human relations criterion in order to achieve success.
(iv)
NPA suggests that small decentralized and flexible hierarchies in organizational structures are more suitable in view of the increasing role of administration.
(v)
Since public affairs are highly varied and complex, no single approach in the study of public administration out of various approaches, namely management approach, human relations approach, political approach, public-choice approach etc., would be adequate to guide the actions of the administrator. Hence education in Public Administration should be heterogeneous and wide based, as is advocated by NPA.
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(vi)
Three Anti-goals of NPA: NPA has advocated 3 anti-goals and hence its literature is called “anti-positivist”. These are a.
Rejecting a definition of Public administration as value-free i.e. Public Administration should be valueoriented since not all the inclinations to the values are bad and hence are desirable at some moments of time.
b.
Rejecting a rationalist and perhaps deterministic view of human kind since human-behaviour is quite unpredictable. Public Administration studies should hence focus on what administration should “become” instead of focusing on what administration should “be”.
c.
Rejecting “Politics – administration dichotomy” since administrators today are involved in policy formulation and policy implementation at all the stages.
(vii) Four Goals of NPA: NPA advocates 4 goals to be achieved in future namely – Relevance, Values, Equity and Change a.
Relevance Contemporary Public Administration has been adversely criticized as it had done nothing to solve the problems and issues confronting the society. In view of this the present concept of NPA suggests that administrators should deal explicitly with political and normative implications of all the administrative actions. In this regard relevance of administrative actions not only to the administration but also to the public should be kept in mind.
b.
Value NPA rejects procedural neutrality and emphasizes that public officials have to advocate the interests of the disadvantaged people. However, emphasis on personal values that benefit the elite sections of the societies should be rejected
c.
Social Equity A public administration system which fails to work for the changes and fails to redress the grievances of the minorities is likely to be eventually used to suppress
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those minorities. Hence the goal of administration should be to bring about social equity and thereby harmony and social integration in the society. d.
Change Change is necessary to prevent Public Administration from coming under the dominance of the powerful interest groups. Now the question arises as to what changes are desirable and what should be the direction of these changes? In NPA, these changes should bring about social equity and the changes brought about should suit the future needs.
C.
What is new in NPA? It is true that ideas behind NPA concept had been there for quite some time but what NPA did was to present those ideas nicely and in an integrated manner. Hence, it can be said that although the concepts are not new but the form provided to them is new. At the same time, credit should be given to NPA scholars for pointing out the fact that “responsiveness” and “responsibleness” in administration need to go together in the modern administrative set up. NPA also provided some solutions for achieving these goals and anti-goals, popularly called 4 D’s i.e. Decentralization, Debureaucratization, Delegation and Democratization. However, the solution in the form of 4 Ds has been criticized by the scholars on following lines: (i) The solutions for achieving the goals and anti-goals were not provided by the NPA scholars explicitly. (ii) Now there arises a million dollar question i.e. now much one should decentralize or delegate or de-bureaucratize or democratize in order to achieve the goals? On this front, NPA is totally silent and it seems that they have left the answer to the discretion of the administrators. (iii) The overall focus in NPA movement seems to be to make administration to be less “generic” and more “public, less “descriptive” and more “prescriptive”, less “institutionoriented” and more “client-oriented”, less “neutral” and more normative” but should be no less scientific all the same.
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Chapter 4 Ecology of Public Administration
Public Administration cannot operate in vacuum. It has to interact with the political executive, social political interest groups, commercial and economic organizations etc, and above all with the people. Public Administration can be taken as a sub-system of the overall social system and has to interact with other sub-systems. A study of such interaction would constitute what has come to be known as ecological approach to the study of public administration. We propose to discuss in brief the ecological aspects of Pubic Administration. 18
A.
Meaning The word “ecology” comes from the field of biology where it suggests the interdependence between animal species and their natural environment. In 1947, John M. Gaus attempted to employ the concept of ecology in the study of Public Administration. By this he meant the interdependence of Public Bureaucracy and its environment. In the same year Robert Dahi stressed the need for cross cultural studies that emphases environmental effects on administrative structure and behaviour. He observed that Public Administration cannot ignore the effect of national psychology and political, social and cultural environment in which it works. These developments in fact reflected the general interest in the study of comparative Public Administration in the newly independent nations during post World War II period. It was realized that the administration of these countries could not be understood in terms of the then existing theories which developed in a totally different setting, mainly in the USA. This interest in the study of Comparative Public Administration (CPA) in the developing countries was encouraged by the following factors: i) ii) iii) iv) v)
American occupational administration during and after World War-II. The emergence of a large number of developing countries. The extension of technical assistance to these countries. Involvement of academicians in the administration of these assistance programmes, and Rapid growth of behavioral sciences in general and comparative politics in particular.
In fact, a whole group of scholars in Comparative Administration Group (CAG) emerged which engaged itself in the study of the administration in developing countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia. They found that the study of Comparative Administration requires new concepts which can take care of the dynamic and developmental aspects of administration in cross cultural perspectives. They have also found that such concepts have to take into account the ecological aspects which can explain the impact of environment on the administrative system and vice versa. In fact Riggs has observed that truly comparative administrative studies have necessarily to be ecological in character.
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The basic premise of the ecological approach is that public administration may be regarded as one of the several institutions of the society. Its structure and functions can, therefore, be studied only in relation to these other institutions. In a system approach, public administration is a sub-system of the society and is constantly interacting i.e. affected by and affecting the economic, political and socio-cultural sub-systems. Riggs, in his “The Ecology of Public Administration” has explored the interaction between Public Administration and the environment in which it develops. From the environment he chose, social, Political, communication, and economic fields to study such interaction in the USA, ancient Siam and modern Philippines and Thailand. A Brief discussion of some of the relevant parameters is given below. B.
Economic Factors In ideal type of diffracted societies to which America approximates closely, the economic organization revolves round the market which is characterized by the use of rational criteria for the allocation of scarce resources for maximization of output. This rationality of the market mechanism is carried over into the administrative bureau, where recruitment obviously takes place on the basis of merit for the job to be performed. Similarly, the market oriented practices of planning, communication, line and staff organizations etc, are taken over to the Public Administration. On the same count, the performance Budgeting has been introduced in the Government. On the other hand the market needs administrative services for enforcement of contracts for regulating trade practices, for provision of infrastructural facilities etc. The money to run these administrative services is, in turn, provided by the economy. The inter-dependence between the economy and public administration thus becomes obvious. The economy could not survive without the administrative system which in turn was shaped by the needs of the economy. Moreover the survival of the administration depends on the support provided by the economy. In a traditional society (termed by Riggs as “fused society”) there is no market. The re-distributive functions of the economy are performed by the administration which becomes co-terminus with it.
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In traditional societies, the economy is governed by BazaarCanteen model which is characterized by “Price-indeterminacy”, “pariah entrepreneurship” and “subsidized” and “tributary” canteen for the favored and the disfavored respectively. Business of entrepreneurship is not favored and not taken up by “stronger” class. They have to buy protection from influential men, mostly from those in administration. This, on the one hand, leaves little with the entrepreneur for capital formation and on the other hand corrupts the administration. Low capital formation makes for low productivity leading to poor population and low tax collections. The administrators are less paid and have all the incentives for corruption. Inter-twining relationship of the economy and the administration is thus apparent. C.
Socio-Cultural Factors American way of life is characterized by the existence of a large number of functionally specific voluntary associations who recruit members universalistically on contractual basis. Apart from its members, the association may also have some staff which serves as its agent. The staff, when big, becomes its bureaucracy. This pattern of associations has affected both economic and administrative fields. The business field is dominated by big corporations whose members are share holders. Similarly, the public bureaucracy is the agent of the American people who form one big association. This social organization gives to the public administration its very important characteristics of universalistic recruitment and functional specificity. The inter-dependence between associations and the administration is very significant. Most of the important associations have their counterparts in the administration which depends on them for interest aggregation and articulation. This facilitates the task of administration in policy formulation and executing, which in turn, helps the associations in furthering their objectives. In fused societies there are no specific associations, but, only family and kinship groups based on status. Higher the status, larger the family with kins family at the apex. Since groups cannot aggregate or articulate the specific functional interests, the administrative order is based on a particularistic group structure which it also helps to sustain.
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In prismatic societies, characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity, formalism and overlapping, the social structure is characterized by poly-communalism. Due to improving communication system, the mobilization in the society takes place faster than assimilation. Instead of nation-wide functionally specific associations, we have such associations on community basis. Such associations, called elects by Riggs, tend to further the interests of their community and not the professional interest on national basis. The emergence of elects has profound influence on public administration which tends to carry many traits from the former. The formal bureau chief while paying lip service to the formal laws and rules feels compelled to help the members of his family and elects. This gives rise to selectivism in recruitment to the positions in Government as well as selection of beneficiaries of the Government programmes. This is some way between universalism and particularities. This leads to nepotism and coupled with the corruption induced by bazaar-canteen model of economic system may lead to differentiated groups hostile to the ruling elite. The efficiency of the administration goes down and so does the efficiency of economic organizations. In this way, the socio-cultural institutions and administration interact in a prismatic society.
D.
Political Factors Public Administration is most intimately connected with the political sub-system of the society. In fact, it has grown out of the political system of which it was earlier taken to be an integral part. Early theorists of Public administration believed in politicsadministration dichotomy. They believed that Public Administration has to execute policies laid down by political masters. The political system needs a lot of information to lay down policies and feedback to readjust them. This information and feed back is provided by Administration. This neat division of the policy making and policy execution functions comparatively diffracted societies to a large extent, though not fully. This need not be the case in the fused and prismatic societies. 22
In fused societies the two functions are not distinct. In political model, termed “archalic” by Riggs both political and administrative functions are performed but cannot be understood in terms of making and enforcing the policies. The situation is much more complex in prismatic societies. The prismatic characteristic of overlapping is very much in evidence among the political and administrative sub-systems. The formal political structure may be universalistic, but in practice laws and policies often discriminate selectively against the excluded groups. The legislators attempt to secure positions for their protégés and devote little time to important functions like legislation and policy making. The strength of elects makes universalistic policies impossible. Political system thus does not perform its functions but tends to enter the field of administration. The administrative system is then called upon to interpret and adopt the laws and policies to practical realities. In the absence of clear-cut policy guidelines and effective control by the political system, the Public Administration acquires considerable leeway in either enforcing policies ritualistically or circumventing them according to the convenience of administrators. Thus in a prismatic society, the administrative and political system, not only show a good deal of interdependence, but also considerable overlapping. E.
Legal Factors The symbol system of a country has a bearing on its legal system. It includes “myth”, “formula” and “code”. “Myth” means symbols to define source of sovereignty; “Formula” determines the structure of the Government, and “Code” includes laws and regulations. For example, the myth of popular sovereignty determines the democratic form of government with its universalistic laws. Whenever this myth is based on consensus among the population, the formal political structure also becomes the substantive one. The legislative, judicial and the executive wings of the government perform their functions as laid down in the basic law i.e. constitution. Within the executive wing, the political executive is able to exercise control over the administrative wing as the guardian of the popular will. Laws enacted by the legislative wing represent the popular will and are faithfully implemented. In other words, there is a great degree of realism in the enactment and enforcement of laws. Any difficulties in implementation by the administration can be brought to the legislature for amendment in 23
the laws. The legal system thus creates interdependent legislatures and executives although they are assigned different specific functions. The discussions will not be complete without showing the effects of this inter-dependence in the prismatic system. Here the myth of popular sovereignty based on equality is superimposed on the traditional system with a different myth based on divine origin of king or family and kingship loyalties. The result is that the structure of the government and the laws enacted by the legislature will not represent the consensus and may not be enforced. This gives rise to constitutional and legal formalism with a great deal of difference between the formal and substantive political and power structure. Some obvious symptoms are: i)
ii)
iii)
iv)
The political executive may not be able to lay down realistic policies due to lack of consensus and unrealistic laws may be enacted. Obviously, they cannot be implemented. This places great power in the hands of the administrators who may chose to implement laws which serve their interests. Since the laws and rules and regulations do not lay down realistic goals, the administrators may be very ritualistic in implementing them. This may result in the red tape for which the bureaucracy is so well known. This fluid situation may prompt the political executives to overlap into the administrative functions to further their partisan interest. This also encourages the reverse process in which the administrators by distorting the rules and laws acquire a lot of political power.
The above discussion makes the interdependence of the political, administrative and the legal systems amply clear to have a sound administrative system; the laws and rules and regulations should be clear and policies should lay down clear goals. On the other hand the enforcement of laws and regulations and implementation of policies depends on a sound administrative system.
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Chapter 5 Evolution of Public Administration as a Discipline
Public Administration has been defined in Chapter 1 as the administrative activities of the Government. Obviously the definition takes or defines Public Administration as an activity. In this Chapter the various phases through which the discipline of Public Administration has passed to reach the present stage will be discussed. It is interesting to note that while Public Administration as an activity is as old as social life itself; its study as an academic discipline is rather recent. Not that Public Administration received no thought from earlier philosophers and thinkers. Several Indian and Western thinkers have dealt with the subject in the past. But, the administrative thought remained 25
undifferentiated from disciplines like political science, law and ethics for a long time. Several examples can be given. The great Hindu epics like Ramayana and the Mahabharat contained a good deal of administrative thoughts along with the basic political setting. The Smritis (The law books of ancient India) contained detailed exposition of judicial organizations and administration. The Hindu books on politics often delt with problems of administration rather than the theoretical basis of the State. Kautilya’s Arthshastra, for example, contains details about the administrative system of his times. Similarly, in ancient China the teachings of Confucius contained many administrative details. The same is true of Aristotle’s Politics. Machiavelli’s “Prince” written towards the end of Middle Ages, is also a treatise on the art of government and administration. There were thus many works in politics which contained details about public administration. However, they did not even use the word “Public Administration” up to the 18th century. Probably Hamilton was the first to define meaning and scope of public administration in the “Federalist” complied in the USA towards the end of the 18th century. Charles Jean Bounin was probably the first author to write a separate book on public administration. It was titled “Principles Administrations Publicque”. The public administration was thus studied over a long period of time as a part of other discipline, but, was not yet recognized as a separate discipline in its own right. It was probably not sufficiently specialized as a subject to merit separate and independent consideration. On this reckoning the subject of Public Administration has completed a little over hundred years as a discipline. During this century long journey the discipline has seen many ups and downs. It has been the “hay day of Principles of Administration” as well as the danger of merging into other disciplines like political science or administrative science. It is proposed to study briefly this fascinating history of the discipline of Public Administration. A.
Phase One (1887-1926) (Politics – Administration Dichotomy). It is well known that public administration was included in the subject/discipline of political science and Woodrow Wilson first emphasized the need to study it as a separate discipline. In an attempt to carve out an independent place for the subject it is not unnatural that an extreme stand was taken by scholars like Goodnow and L.D. White. They emphasized that politics and administration were two distinct activities and were to be studied 26
separately. In his monumental work “Politics and Administration (1900), Goodnow contended that there were two distinct functions of the Government “Politics” has to do with policies or the expression of the State will, while “administration” has to do with the execution of these policies. The legislative branch of the Government, with the help of judicial interpretations, provided the policy frame work. The executive branch had to administer these policies impartially, politically and efficiently. During the early part of the twentieth century a “Public Services Movement”, was taking place in American Universities. Public administration, therefore, received some serious attention from the scholars. The “Committee on Instruction in Government” of the American Political Science Association reported in 1914 the Political Science was concerned with training for citizenship, professional preparation such as law and journalism, training experts and to prepare specialists for Government positions, and educating for research work. This clearly made “Public Administration” a clear and significant sub-field of Political Science. Some other developments took place during this period which, in time to come, contributed significantly to the recognition of “Public Administration” as a separate discipline. In 1912, a committee on Practical Training for Public Service was established under the auspices of the American Political Science Association. The Committee reported in 1914 that “Professional Schools” were needed to train public administration. The Committee formed the nucleus of the “Society” for the Promotion of Training for Public Service” founded in 1914 – a fore runner of the American Society for Public Administration which was established in 1989. Another significant development of this period was the publication of the first text book on Public Administration by L.D White in 1926. The book was titled “introduction to the Study of Public Administration”. The book took the politics – administration dichotomy to its logical conclusions. The period was thus characterized by politics – administration dichotomy which was somehow related to value-fact dichotomy. It was felt that the public administrator was supposed to deal with the execution of policies and therefore, was concerned with things that are “factual” and “scientific”. The political scientists, on the other hand, were supposed to deal with the policy making and other matters involving value questions. All this was supposed to have 27
been derived from Wilson’s essay of 1887, which in fact was at best ambivalent on the subject and what it really emphasized, was that “Public Administration is a field worth studying”. He did not emphasize politics/administration dichotomy as he was aware that public administration is innately political in nature and the two can never really be separate. He, in fact, made this clear in his assay itself. Be that as it may, Wilson’s assay did give rise to a phase of politics/administration dichotomy in the study of Public Administration. By hind sight it can be said that this dichotomy was at best naive. But a long time had to pass before it was realized by the scholars of Public Administration. For the time being the emphasis on “fact” in public administration was to give rise to some Fundamental Principles of Administration. B.
Phase Two (1927-1937) (The Principles of Administration) As already mentioned earlier that the politics/administration dichotomy gave rise to value/fact dichotomy. Everything about Public Administration was thought to be “factual” or “Scientific”. Search for scientific or universal principles of administration was, therefore, only a step away. The process was hastened by the Scientific Management Movement which proceeded the era of Principles of Administration. The development of Scientific Management in the Business schools focused mainly on the Assembly Line, while the Principles of administration were developed under the school of thought named “Administrative Management”. The latter concerned itself with higher management. The “Principles of Management” by F.W. Taylor (1911) and writings of other authors like Frank and Lillian, Galibreth developed principles of efficient physical movement for optimal assembly line efficiency. These writings and the whole Scientific Management Movement concentrated on finding “one best way” of doing and organizing things. They emphasized that in terms of technical efficiency there could be only ”One best way” of doing things which had to be found in every work situation. Since the Public Administration was also thought to be “factual” and “Scientific” development of certain scientific principles was to be natural consequences. In 1927, W.F Willoughby’s book “Principles of Public Administration” was published. It was the second full-fledged text book on Public Administration. Its thrust was that certain scientific principles of administration should be discovered. These principles should be mastered by the 28
practitioners of administration, other significant contributions in this direction were Mary Parker Follett’s “Creative Experience” (1924), Henri Fayol’s “industrial and General Management” (1930) and James D Mooney and Alan C.Riley’s “Principles of Organizations(1939). All these works enunciated several principles of organization. These were supposed to be principles applicable to every administrative organization and situation. In other words the application of these principles would not depend on nature and function of the organization; environmental setting; historical and cultural background of the country;work situation etc. The Zenith of the era of the Principles was reached in 1937 with the publication of Luther H. Gulick and Lyndall Urwick’s “Papers on the Science of Administration”. The authors were the Chief advisors of the President Roosevelt and their papers were a report to the President’s Committee on Administrative Science. According to Luther and Gulick, the Principles of Organization are summed up by the acronym POSDCORB which stands forP O S D CO R B
C.
-
Planning Organization Staffing Directing Coordination Reporting Budgeting
Phase Three (1938-1959) (Shadows of Doubt) The age of certainty of principles did not last long. Voices of dissent were heard from two directions. Firstly, serious objections were raised against the politics – administration dichotomy. It was contended that politics and administration can never be separated as they were organically linked with each other. Secondly, the principles of administration were seriously challenged on the ground that they are not logically consistent. Although the dissent to politics – administration dichotomy started in the late thirties, F.M. Marx’s edited volume “Elements of Public Administration (1946) made a major contribution to such dissent. All the fourteen articles of the book, written by practitioners, 29
pointed towards an awareness of the fact that there was hardly any issue which could be resolved by ‘value-free’ administration. It is almost impossible to separate it from the value laden politics. For example, there may be one scientific way to build a road. But, could it be separated from such questions as whether the road should be built at all? Where should it be built? From which competing claims the money should be drawn for building the road? Such a separation obviously appears impossible. The formal answer to the question of politics – administration dichotomy was provided by John Gans in his off-quoted dictum “a theory of Public Administration means in our time a theory of politics also”, published in Public Administration Review in 1950. Almost simultaneously a serious challenge was being posed to the so called Universal Principles of Administration. The earliest challenge almost went unnoticed. In his book, ‘The Functions of the Executive’ published in 1938, Chester Bernard challenged the validity of the ‘Principles”, but the impact of his challenge was probably delayed as, being the President of New Jersey Bell Telephone Company, his academic credentials were not immediately recognized. Simon, however, picked up the thread when he wrote the article’ The Proverbs of Administration’ which was published in Public Administration Review in 1946. Next year Robert Dahl also published his article’ The Science of Administration: Three Problems’ in the same journal. He gave three arguments to support his contention that there cannot be any universal principles of administration. His arguments were – i)
ii)
iii)
There are values contending for pre-eminence in any organization. It is therefore, not possible to have value free scientific principles of administration having universal applications. Administration is carried out in human organizations having human beings who have differing personalities. It is, therefore, difficult to find principles which can be applicable to all administrative situations. The environment or social framework of administration differs from country to country and in the same country from organization to organization. It is, therefore, not possible to devise universal principles of administration applicable to all such situations.
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Finally in 1947 Herbert Simon came forward with his book ‘Administrative Behaviour’, A study of decision-making processes in Administrative Organizations’. Here he showed that for every principle of administration there was a counter-principle which was equally true. Even the different principles were not mutually consistent. For example, the principle of having a small ‘span of control’ is directly contradictory to the principle of maximized communication’. The principle of ‘Span of Control’ requires that an administrator can supervise only a small number (about which the experts differ) of subordinates; if organizations are designed on this ‘principle’ it may have too many layers of hierarchy. This would make organizational communication very cumbersome. For maximum communication the organization should be flat and should not have too many layers. Obviously the two principles contradict each other. Another major work of the time was Dwight Waldo’s “The Administrative State: A study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration”. The book was published in 1948 and attacked the notion of immutable principles of administration. It showed the inconsistencies of the methodology of determining the Principles of Administration. The book beautifully demonstrated that the values of ‘economy’ and ‘efficiency’ dominating the thinking of the field at that time were too narrow to give a correct view of the Public Administration. This was the time of Human Relations School of Public Administration. The dominant theme was that the mechanical and scientific principles were too narrow and inadequate to explain the working of organizations, since the organizations comprised human beings. It was necessary to understand human behaviour as it is to be able to understand the organizational behaviour. The attempt was to build a theory of human behaviour in organizations. And it was too complicated to fit into the strait-jacket of mechanical and scientific principles of administration. By the middle of the century, the Public Administration had thus lost both the pillars of strength; the ‘politics – administration dichotomy’ and ‘universal principles of administration’. The Public Administrationists, therefore, found the ground slipping from under their feet. The discipline came on the verge of losing its identity. The morale of the discipline was therefore, very low. It was looking to different directions to find its movings.
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D.
Phase Four (1950-1970) (Search for Identity) While demolishing the Principles of Administration, Herbert Simon thought of a new paradigm of two mutually reinforcing components of Public Administration; viz., a pure science of administration based on a thorough grounding in social psychology and the other one concerned with ‘prescribing for public policy’. And, the Public Administration did, in fact start searching for its identity in these two streams. In the Lap of Political Science Some of the Public Administrationists opted for strengthening the conceptual linkages of Public Administration with the mother discipline of political science. They had two reasons for doing the samei)
ii)
There is a logical connection between the two in the public policy making process. They considered Public Administration as forming the internal stage of the process; i.e. the formulation of public policies within public bureaucracies and their delivery to the policy. Political Science, on the other hand was thought to provide the external stage of the process; i.e. considering the pressures in the polity generating political and social change. The logic of retaining linkage between the two is thus clear. They feared that treating Public Administration as a ‘pure science’ will make it lose touch with political and social realities. The focus would then be too narrow. They were aware of the inadequacy of the Principles of Administration and were afraid that pure science of public administration would exclude from their purview the richest sources of enquiry, viz., public interest, human values and normative political theory.
While this group of Public Administrations tried to strengthen the bond of Public Administration with Political Science, the “mother Discipline” was in no mood to welcome the prodigal son. Nor was it ready to grant it any independent entity even within the field. Political scientists started calling ‘intellectualized understanding’ of the executive branch as their aim of the discipline rather than preparing public administrators for action as called earlier. During this period even the position of Political Science was rather at low 32
ebb and it was considered a junior member of the social sciences and within political science, Public Administration was treated with scant respect. It would be clear from the fact that in 1962, Public Administration was not included as a sub-field of Political Science in the report of the Committee on Political Science. In 1967, Public Administration was not included as an organizing category in the programme of the annual meeting of the “American Political Science Association”. Many Political Scientists were indifferent or even hostile to Public Administration. Case Studies To cope with the situation some Public Administrationists developed the case study method under the aegis of the Committee on Public Administration of the Social Science Research Council of USA. According to Waldo the emergence of case method in 40s and 50s reflects the response of ‘pubic administration’ to ‘behavioral revolution’. It provided the Public Administrationists to call their work as empirical and behavioral. It also provided them an alternative to the Simon’s call for a rigorous pure science of administration. This also provided them a way of re-establishing links with the discipline of political science. However, the period is characterized by a group of dispirited scholars trying to cope with the situation as best as they could. But, the fields of comparative and development administration provided a contrast to this depressing scenario. Comparative and Development Administration Although the beginning of comparative and development administration could be traced to late 40s and early 50s, it really became strong during the 60s. In 1962, the Comparative Administration Group (CAG) of the American Society of Public Administration received financing from the Ford Foundation. During the heydays of the Comparative Administration (1960-70), the membership of CAG grew to more than 500 under the leadership of Fred W. Riggs. The main features of the Comparative Administration were well described by Riggs. He said that it tries to build administrative theory by being empirical, and ecological. The most important of these was its ecological character so much so that Comparative Public Administration is often called cross-cultural public 33
administration. Ford Foundation supported the programme with a view to help the poor people in developing countries by improving their administrative capabilities. This concern of the Foundation was, however, not shared by the scholars of the Comparative Administration Group. These scholars were from the beginning interested in grand theory building rather than providing answers to the practical problems being faced by the developing countries. This incidentally was also the main difference between the main fields of Public Administration and Comparative Public Administration. The main field has developed out of the action in the real world. It has come as an answer to the practical administrative problems, of course mainly in the American context. In other words the main field has been ‘practitioner-oriented”. In contrast, the Comparative Public Administration has had a purely scholarly approach and has concentrated on theory building. As this approach proved of little use in solving the practical administrative problems of the developing countries, the Ford Foundation withdrew its financial support. The CAG was disbanded in 1973 and merged with the international Committee of the American Society for Public Administration. The journal of Comparative Administration also closed down in 1974. This was probably inevitable because the comparative sub-field set up a very difficult goal of developing a comprehensive Theory of Public Administration. A sub-field of Comparative Administration also developed viz. Development Administration. But, the contributors to this sub-field have not been able to build any viable theory. In fact, the writings on the subject have not really been able to even bring it into proper focus. Although these sub-fields are not being pursued with the same vigour as in sixties, interest in them continues to some extent. Another significant development during the period was effervescence of some young Public Administrationists which has come to be known as New Public Administration which will be very briefly discussed here. New Public Administration In 1968, Waldo Sponsored a conference of young Public Administrationists, the proceedings of which were published in 1971 as a book entitled ‘The New Public Administration: The Minnow book Perspective”. The conference de-emphasized the traditional aspects of economy and efficiency in Public 34
Administration. Instead the moral aspects were emphasized. It mainly discussed questions of values, ethics, development of individual member in the organization, the relationship of the client with bureaucracy and several other problems of technology, urbanization etc. Of course, the effervescence of the New Public Administration was lost almost as quickly as it occurred. But, many scholars feel that it was really an attempt by Public Administrationists to break away from Political Science as well as the Administrative Science, which was the other discipline in which the Public Administration was trying to take refuge. With Administrative Science As already mentioned above when Pubic Administrationists sought to return to the mother discipline of political science, they were not very welcome there and were reduced to second class citizenship. Some of them, therefore, looked elsewhere and tried to take refuge in Administrative Science. This meant losing identity into the bigger discipline of Administrative Science which includes Organization Theory and Management Science. Organization Theory, using the disciplines of social psychology, sociology, etc., emphasizes the importance of organization as a basis of all administration - be it private, public or institutional. Some of the important contributors in the field were James G. March and Herbert Simons “Organization” (1958); Richard Cyert and March’s “A Behavioural Theory of the Firm” (1963); March’s “Handbook of Organizations” (1965) and James D. Thompson’s “Organization in Action” (1967). In the early 60s Organization Development was making rapid progress. It utilizes the concept of social psychology. It values democratization of bureaucracy and self actualization of comprising the bureaucracy within organizations. Organization Development therefore provided a very attractive alternative to political science for the Public Administration. Of course, there was no conceptual difficulty in using the management techniques for improving the economy and efficiency of tasks performed by the Public Administrators. Many of these tasks would lend themselves to improvement by the Mathematical technique devised by the Management sciences. It is a different 35
matter that these techniques cannot encompass the whole of Public Administration. But, as already mentioned, the real dilemma was that the whole exercise reduced Public Administration to at best a sub-field of Administrative science. It was not much of an improvement to be so treated as a sub-field of Administrative science instead of an “emphasis’ in political science. Both ways Public Administration would lose its identity in either of the disciplines. It was not a very pleasant situation for the discipline struggling for an independent status. The Administration and New Administration were taking the discipline in a new direction. These did not last long, but, they did create a climate where the discipline started creating an identity of its own. E.
Phase Five (after 1970) (Pubic Administration as Pubic Administration) During the last three decades or so, the discipline of Pubic Administration has made considerable progress in establishing its identity. In this quest, it has taken two directions. Firstly, it has been using the administrative science route to study how and why the organizations work the way they do; how and why people in organizations behave the way they do; how and why decisions etc are made. More and more refined management techniques have also been taken from the management sciences and used. Secondly, an attempt has been made to define public in public administration, with the distinction between public and private being blurred, public Administrationists are veering round the view that the public in public administration means public interest. This new dimension is being recognized as public affairs. The concept of determining public interest and implementing it gives a distinctive feature of pubic administration, without public interest in mind, administrative science could be used for anything good or bad. However, the progress in terms of defining ‘pubic interest’, ‘public affairs’, and ‘prescribing for public policy’ has been rather slow. But Public Administration at last appears to be coming into its own. In 1970 National Association of Schools of Public Affairs Administration (NASPAA) was founded. It originated in “Council in Graduate Education for Public Administration” founded in 1950 by a small number of graduate programmes. The setting up of the national associations in 1970 greatly strengthened it. In 1983 the National Association (NASPAA) became a formal professional 36
accrediting agency for Pubic Administration programmes. By 1986, seventy universities had been granted recognition by NASPAA. With this it appears that Public Administration is fast becoming a separate self aware field of study.
Chapter 6 Public Administration as an Art and Science
There has been a controversy over the status of Public Administration. Some scholars consider it as a science while most of the practitioners of management theory stress that it is an art. Let us now consider and then try to establish whether Public Administration is a Science or an Art. Considering Pubic Administration as Science has two implications i.e. it could be a Science or it could be a Social Science. Let us first examine as to how Public Administration can be considered as a science. “Science” has 2 branches i.e. ‘Pure Science” and “Social Science”. The ‘Pure Science’ has the following characteristics:
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(i) (ii) (iii)
Universality of laws Exactness of the results based on these laws Predictability of events.
In Public Administration there has been a quest to find out universal laws. But such universal laws have so far not been established. Similarly the results are in excess to some degree and the events, since they involve human behaviour, are also not totally predictable. Hence Public Administration cannot be considered to be a ‘Pure Science’ in its present status of understanding. Now we may consider as to how Public Administration be considered as a ‘Social Science’. Social Science is defined as - ‘a systematic body of knowledge derived from day-to-day experience, observations and practice”. A social science contains concepts, hypothesis, theories, experimentation, principles, etc. and to develop these principles either inductive approach or deductive approach is used. Hence based on above definition, Public Administration can be considered to be Social Science because – 1.
2.
3. 4.
5.
It contains a body of exact knowledge derived from experiences and observations which are applicable in practical situations. Hence in this respect it is as much a general science as economics or psychology or biology. Through continued efforts, a body of principles which is applicable in any administrative set up has been developed. These principles are required to be applied in order to secure efficiency in administration. It employs scientific methods of investigations in its study e.g. research and analysis is an indispensable part of any public policy. It uses scientific process i.e. facts and data are collected and analyzed and based on this analyze generalizations are arrived at. Hence an administrator applies science in much the same manner as an Engineer or a Doctor. It has also developed its won body of subject matter as distinct from other social science disciplines, though it is inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary.
Therefore, it can be said that Public Administration is a corpus of demonstrated truths and hence a social science. However, as a social science, Pubic Administration has deficiencies, which present
38
impediments in the path of it being considered as a social science. These are: 1.
2.
3.
4.
Public Administration involves dealing with Human Behaviour in organization which is not amendable to experimentation in laboratory conditions. Besides, most part of the subject matter of Public Administration is not amendable to experiments. Simon in “Administrative Behaviour” has criticized that the principles propounded in the discipline of Public Administration are mutually contradictory and he has said that they are nothing but homely proverbs. The subject matter of Public Administration is not free from values and hence its study can’t be completely objective, while objectivity is the prime criterion for a discipline to be considered as a science. Public Administration is also culture-bound i.e. Public Administration in one country is quite different from Public Administration in another country.
However, one can still regard Pubic Administration as a social science with following characters: a) b)
c)
d)
It is a new undeveloped science where conscious theorizing has gone on for only in the past 100 years. It is primarily a science of observation than experiment while other social sciences are amendable to experiments. In case of public administration every new policy which is implemented in itself becomes a social experiment. It is both a positive and a normative science i.e. it is concerned with what “is” in the administration and also what “should be” in the administration. In other words it takes account of existing facts and tendencies and hence it is more than a mere wishful thinking. It is a progressive science meaning thereby that its “generalizations” and “principles” are bound to be constantly revised and restated.
However, there exists a rival group of practitioners who claim that Public Administration is an Art. The arguments behind their belief are as follows: a)
Administration, as has been established over the years, requires specialized skills and specialized knowledge and it is not possible for everyone to carry out administration just as it is not possible for everyone to perform a drama or a dance. 39
b) c)
d)
Administration requires leadership and conviction, which cannot be taught in a class. It requires a body of special talents in the field of administration to become a manager/administrator. For example, tactfulness, conflict management etc are such special talents. Success in administration is directly proportional to the extent of skills applied. This is supported by the fact that in a group of 15-20 people only one person turns out to be a good manager who leads the others.
In the light of the above discussions, the following two conclusions may be arrive at: 1.
2.
There are strong reasons to believe that Pubic Administration is both – a ‘Science” and an “Art” i.e. though it can make predictions, the predictions are not absolutely correct. It also mean that a contingency approach is required in the practice of administration i.e. there is a need to modify the science of administration to suit the situation and then apply it. The ability to modify it and to apply it is an art. The word “Science” could be used here in the connotation of a ‘social Science’. It has the traits of a science since predictability is there though limited only up to some degree.
Hence one can say that the methodology applied in Public Administration is scientific while its application is an art.
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